The week in trade ends with reports of a significant new deal between the UK and EU to spare British exporters from new European carbon taxes due to come into effect at the start of next year.
It was also the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool earlier in the week, while two new cohorts began studying qualifications supported by the Chartered Institute, one in Northern Ireland and the other in east Africa.
Today’s news: The major news for traders to take note of, as they head into the weekend, is a report in the Guardian last night that the UK and EU are set to strike a deal that spares British businesses from paying new carbon taxes.
The new levies are due to come in from 1 January 2026, under the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), and apply to multiple sectors including steel, aluminium, fertilisers and glass. The UK is due to introduce its own CBAM in 2027.
Both parties had already committed to linking emissions trading schemes (ETS) earlier this year at the UK-EU Leaders’ Summit in May. The Guardian reports that a temporary deal to prevent British firms from needing to pay the levy, while the UK’s CBAM continues to be developed, is now likely.
The news will be welcomed by businesses in the affected industries, as well as the Chartered Institute, which recommended that London and Brussels ensure future alignment on energy policy in its recent report, ‘Reimagining UK-EU trade and cooperation’.
The big picture: Party conference season continued with Labour hosting its annual gathering in Liverpool this week.
Sir Keir Starmer told delegates that they were facing a “fight for the soul of our country” with Reform UK and admitted that his government continued to face “tough decisions” ahead of the upcoming Autumn Budget. In his response to the address, our director general, Marco Forgione, honed in on Starmer’s pledges to boost investment in education for school leavers, including apprenticeships.
Elsewhere at conference, new trade minister Sir Chris Bryant told delegates at an event hosted by the Chartered Institute to expect more trade deals from the Labour government. Chancellor Rachel Reeves and new business minister Peter Kyle also hailed the UK’s recent ‘hattrick’ of agreements with the US, EU and India.
Up next: Party conference season continues with the Greens’ new leader Zack Polanski speaking at his party’s gathering in Bournemouth today, and the Conservatives convening in Manchester from Sunday.
Polanski’s brand of ‘eco-populism’ will be on full display when he begins his speech at 1.30pm, and he is expected to accuse Labour of playing “handmaiden” to Reform’s “dangerous, deceitful politics”, according to Politico’s London Playbook this morning.
The leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, is also set to address environmental issues at the Conservative Party’s conference next week, where she is expected to pledge to scrap the Climate Change Act 2008. The move has attracted criticism within Conservative circles, with former London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith saying the pledge was “not a mark of an even halfway serious political party”.
Badenoch is also expected to announce a promise to remove the UK from the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) should her party win the next election, according to the Guardian. You can read more about what to expect from Conservatives in the coming days in our preview feature here.
Good week/bad week: The UK government will view this as a good week if, alongside a broadly positive response to Starmer’s conference speech, it has secured a critical minerals deal with Greenland.
Figures close to the talks for the agreement told Politico that the UK is “on the cusp” of unveiling the deal and that it will go “beyond critical minerals”.
However, the US government has had a less good week, with federal agencies shutting down following the failure of Congress to pass regulation pertaining to funding.
John Thune, the majority leader in the Senate, said yesterday that it’s “unlikely” that senators will vote again on the regulation this week, meaning the shutdown will likely continue into next week.
“They’ll have a fourth chance tomorrow to vote to open up the government, and if that fails, we’ll give them the weekend to think about it, and then we’ll come back and vote on Monday,” he told reporters.
How’s stat: £18bn is the potential dent to public finances that could be caused by a productivity downgrade by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The FT reports that this would create an “overall fiscal hole of some £30bn” ahead of the upcoming Autumn Budget.
In case you missed it: As well as running events at Labour Party conference, the Chartered Institute has been hosting webinars and supporting the education of the next generation of trade professionals.
There were two webinars this week, including a free session on AI and UK trade policy on Tuesday featuring experts from government and industry, and a member-exclusive Customs Corner Live event on Wednesday, featuring guidance on the EU’s new Import Control System (ICS2).
Two new cohorts of learners also began qualifications supported by the Chartered Institute in Northern Ireland and east Africa.
This included the fourth cohort on the Graduate to Export programme managed by Invest Northern Ireland and Ulster University Business School, and the first cohort of trade promotion organisations in the East Africa Community (EAC) to be put through the newly launched Diploma in International Trade, which we’re running with the International Trade Centre.
The picture above shows our professional practices director, Kevin Shakespeare, in attendance at the Graduate to Export launch, alongside our NI stakeholder lead Elaine Flynn and customs and trade tutor Nicholas Blenkinsop.
The week in customs: British voters showed that they backed the government’s plans to reduce post-Brexit border checks on agrifood products by creating a Common Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Area with the EU.
The UK and EU committed to working on the area at the leaders’ summit earlier this year, but both Reform and the Conservatives have said they would ditch the plans.
Polling commissioned by Politico shows nearly two-thirds of voters (63%) back the deal though, with just 22% against it.
What else we covered: On customs, we covered how the EU is looking to withdraw a customs procedure for goods moved via “one-off fiscal representation”. Regime 42 had been being used by some firms to defer VAT payments on “goods being imported into one member state of the EU which are destined for a consignee in another member state,” our customs practice director Anna Doherty explained.
We also updated members on the latest trade developments from Africa and interviewed consultant Nancy Nwanze on opportunities for African traders amid tariff turbulence.
Quote of the week: “With uncertainty on the benchmarking mechanism, coupled with the fluctuating price of CBAM certificates, UK exports faced becoming uncompetitive in Europe,” said the Chartered Institute CBAM specialist Joe Goldsworthy.
“Exporters will be keen to see the detail on how this temporary deal operates, and many businesses will be keeping a close eye on how to comply with the temporary measures, should they come into force in time for 2026.”
Read Joe’s full response to the CBAM temporary deal here.
True facts: On this day in 1990, the reunification of Germany was completed, with Berlin once more becoming the capital of a unified German state.
